Doesn’t torture merit a judge-led inquiry?

THIS was a day of great shame for Britain, as Theresa May apologised to a Libyan dissident, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, for one of the darkest episodes of the post-war years.

In 2004, based on intelligence from MI6, he and his pregnant wife were kidnapped and flown to Libya to endure torture at the hands of Colonel Gaddafi’s henchmen.

So it should not have been Mrs May apologising but those who, under the Blair government, abandoned the principles of a civilised society to cosy up to the murderous, oil-rich Gaddafi regime. Shamefully, the British civil service – in the form of MI6 chief Sir Mark Allen – was complicit.

Jack Straw must take a huge share of blame. The then foreign secretary dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’ any suggestion of British involvement in rendition.

But most of all the blame lies with Mr Blair himself, who – days after Mr Belhaj was handed over – signed the grubby ‘deal in the desert’ which legitimised a dictator.

For years the Mail has argued that a full inquiry was needed into this episode. Instead, the political establishment did everything to stop the truth coming out.

We have nothing like a full account of how Britain tore up its moral rule book and opposition to torture after 9/11.

Yes, the US government took the lead, and they have brutally exposed their own amorality. The unflinching Senate Intelligence Committee published its appalling report into the CIA torture programme four years ago.

Yet after sustained UK lobbying, all evidence of our role was redacted.

Meanwhile, it is a total mystery what the Intelligence and Security Committee, which was then charged with investigating, has been doing for the past five years.

So yesterday’s apology was fully justified. What matters now is that a full investigation is conducted and the authors of this stain on our conscience are held to account.

The Press in this country was dragged before the Leveson inquiry over the hacking of celebrities’ phones by red-top newspapers, with journalists giving evidence under oath. Surely the more serious matter of complicity in torture merits – at the very least – similar treatment?